


Ruminations

by Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler



Series: Doctor Tenor; Soldier Spy [7]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: 5+1 Things, DENIAL ISN'T JUST A RIVER IN EGYPT, Developing Relationship, Episode: s02e03 Projections, Episode: s02e08 Persistence of Vision, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Season 2-Season 3, THE +1 WILL COME IN THE NEXT WORK I PROMISE, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, almost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-04-27 19:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14432832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler/pseuds/Lt_Cmdr_Scribbler
Summary: Five Times that Tyvaa and the Doctor dismissed a serious relationship between them with "logical reasoning."





	1. Projections

As an Andorian, Tyvaa had never really understood what humans found so fascinating about “the first snow of the year.” At the start, this was because there was never a “first snow” on Andor, only the ice caverns and the unimpeded tundra on the planet’s surface. However, watching the endearing sight before her, she was beginning to understand the appeal of the concept, as well as the appeal of a particular doe-eyed, quasi-middle-aged, holographic human.

Tyvaa couldn’t keep the silly grin off of her face as she watched the Doctor walk about the holodeck. His head ducked to watch his feet as snow crunched beneath his simulated weight, and every time a snowflake landed on the Doctor’s skin, his eyelids would almost flutter as his subroutines tried to adjust to the unfamiliar sensory input. So far the cold didn’t seem to bother him much, although Tyvaa wasn’t sure how much of the temperature change he did feel through his receptors. A nineteenth century North American blizzard was just a windy day compared to some of her memories of Andor, but Tyvaa had yet to hear any complaints out of her companion.

She reached out and entangled the Doctor’s fingers in her own, which were just starting to flush with a deeper blue pigment than usual due to the cold. Unlike the Doctor, who didn’t exactly need protective gear, Tyvaa had thrown on a light parka over one of her off-duty outfits: a deep green top patterned with triangles and high-waisted white trousers that tucked into silver-colored ankle boots. Tyvaa let herself selfishly enjoy her mistake of forgetting gloves on this outing as she squeezed the Doctor’s hand to regain a bit of feeling in her fingers.

“Enjoying the weather out here, Doc?” Tyvaa’s words seemed to have startled him out of a reverie, for the Doctor twitched slightly and squeezed her hand in his before meeting her eyes. His expressive brown eyes jumped from one point to another, hyper-focused all the while, before his warm gaze settled on her face.

“Tyvaa, this is…” Endearingly, the Doctor couldn’t stop smiling even as he fumbled with his words. “I never thought I would ever want to see Earth or its seasons or anything that wasn’t the inside of a Sickbay. This is more than I can say.”

Ducking her head bashfully, Tyvaa laughed quietly to distract herself from the blush on her face that hadn’t been put there by the chill. She rocked herself slightly, bumping the Doctor’s shoulder with her own. “You’re a smart guy, Doc, I think you’ll put it in words sooner or later,” replied Tyvaa lamely. “I’m just glad I found this program among the computer records. It’s the least I could do, really. We, and by that I mean you, need a few hours away from Sickbay every once in a while.”

The Doctor’s wry half-smile grew on his face, but as he opened his mouth to speak, their winter wonderland vanished, leaving only the yellow grid of the holodeck around them. To Tyvaa’s increasing alarm, her hand phased right through the Doctor’s, and he clutched at his head with a grimace. The floor trembled under their feet, and Tyvaa lurched back before she centered herself.

“Tyvaa to Bridge, what is going on? There’s something wrong with the Doctor and the holodeck’s malfunctioning,” Tyvaa barked into her combadge. Her hands had clenched into fists to keep from reaching out to the rapidly phasing hologram despite the way she itched to comfort the Doctor.

“ _A radiation surge severely disrupted the ship’s computer_ ,” Captain Janeway tersely summarized. “ _Ensign Kim is still assessing the damage, but we’re well away from it now. How bad does it look, Tyvaa_?”

Thankfully, the Doctor looked less physically distressed, only now he stood frozen and blank-faced like the first time Tyvaa had called to activate the Emergency Medical Hologram. Stepping directly in front of him, she waved one hand in front of his eyes, then hesitantly placed her fingertips on his cheek. Upon receiving no reaction, Tyvaa made a growl of frustration in the back of her throat.

“At first he looked like he was in pain and he phased right through me, but now he’s just… standing there,” Tyvaa summarized.

After a disconcerting pause, Janeway replied, “ _I’ve sent Ensign Kim to the holodeck to take a preliminary look at him. Report to me the moment that the Doctor’s situation changes, understood?_ ”

“Understood, Captain,” agreed Tyvaa faintly. Stepping away from the Doctor, she clenched her hands into fists once more to fight the restless itching that took root in the center of her palm.

“I am not losing anyone,” she murmured, staring fixedly at her friend’s face. “I _am not_.”

Thankfully for Tyvaa’s sanity, Harry arrived on the scene not long after Janeway’s call. Tyvaa swiveled around to face him, pausing in the repetitive pacing she had begun after the itch of helplessness had spread to her feet. Seeing the troubled expression on Tyvaa’s face, Harry abandoned whatever half-baked reassurances he’d whipped up on the walk to the holodeck and set straight to examining the holodeck controls.

Tyvaa resumed her pacing, and crossed her arms over her chest. The rhythm kept her from staring at the Doctor, at Harry, at anything other than her own feet. It kept her mind from wandering toward the what ifs, the possibilities of failure, and so she walked. _One-two-three, four-five-six,_ and a turn on her heel would send her ponytail swinging.

_One-two-three, four-five-six._

_One-two-three, four-five-six._

_One-two-three, four-five- **thunk**._

The reflective silver material of Tyvaa’s boot shone against the floor--not the matte black-and-yellow hologrid as she’d expected. The grey flooring under her boot was familiar, and with a sinking feeling she identified it as Sickbay’s floor. Tyvaa jerked her head up to look at the Doctor, and she saw the grey floor unfolding from where he stood. One by one, she watched the biobeds materialize and she didn’t even realize she was staring in shock until she felt Harry practically dragging her by her elbow toward the holodeck exit.

Tyvaa cried, “Doctor!”

Too late, Tyvaa wrenched herself from Harry’s grasp and her fists collided uselessly against the titanium doors as they slid shut. She felt the young man’s hands settle on her shoulders again, but she felt too stunned to shake him off once more.

“Tyvaa, I’ve patched the terminal to show us what happens in the holodeck until we can safely figure out what’s causing this,” said Harry. His frazzled expression reminded Tyvaa how young he was, and she chided herself for losing her head so quickly, and in front of the fresh-faced Ensign, too.

Wordlessly, she settled herself in front of the viewer on the holodeck controls, and waited. Tyvaa watched the Doctor walk frustratedly through Sickbay, until the appearance of a filthy B’Elanna emerged from one of the Jefferies tubes. She watched them converse in silence for a few moments before the holo-B’Elanna began to work on something with the consoles in the facsimile of Sickbay. When they began to speak again, Tyvaa keyed in the command for the speakers.

“—projectors are charged and ready to go,” the engineer was saying, “and the imaging interface is stable. Are you ready for this?”

Despite the battered conditions that B’Elanna and her surroundings seemed to be in, Tyvaa couldn’t help but smile a little. She had mused to B’Elanna about installing holoprojectors ship-wide a few days prior while the engineer escorted her to Sickbay. The topic had prompted her friend to make a remark about “house calls,” and while she had swatted B’Elanna on the shoulder for that cheeky humor, Tyvaa hadn’t been aware of the Doctor listening to that conversation.

“Harry,” Tyvaa spoke slowly as a thought dawned on her, “can you identify what kind of program is running right now?”

“I can certainly try,” he answered, and knelt down next to her and stared with no small amount of determination and resignation at the holodeck controls. After a handful of silent minutes, Harry frowned deeply.

“It… it looks like it’s just the Doctor in there, like the entire scenario is his program, but that can’t be possible,” explained Harry haltingly. “The radiation must be effecting him more than the Captain thought it was.”

“Radiation? Was that what we encountered earlier?” Tyvaa demanded.

“Kinoplasmic radiation, yeah. It looks like it’s created a feedback loop, which spawned this simulation that we’re seeing. I might be able to work against it from here, scale his program back enough to shut him down in order to do a full diagnostic in Sickbay,” he theorised.

With a silent nod, Tyvaa contented herself with the suggestion and began to stretch her hands to stave off the creeping uselessness. As she waited for Harry to accomplish something definitive, she watched the tiny display. She watched as the Doctor revived Janeway on the Bridge, and cracked a saucepan over a Kazon’s head with relative ease. Tyvaa wasn’t sure if the Doctor merely had subroutines for “cool under pressure” and “scarily competent” or if he was simply disguising any panic he was feeling, but she felt a surge of pride for him as she observed.

 _If only he could come on away missions_ , she mused, but before she could finish that thought, a detail on the display captured her full attention. The Doctor had dabbed at his ear after briefly conversing with Neelix, and a sheen of red could be seen on his fingertips.

“ _Harry_ ,” stressed Tyvaa, her eyes not straying from the display. “He’s not supposed to be able to bleed.”

After a few swift keystrokes, Harry let out a breath. “He only thinks he’d bleeding, Lieutenant. Still, that’s not good; his program might be damaged.”

“I need to get in there,” she insisted, clenching her fists.

“Tyvaa, it’s not—”

“Barclay!?”

“What’s broccoli got to do with—”

Tyvaa jabbed her finger at the screen, specifically toward the sudden appearance of a man in a yellow Operations uniform. “No, _him_. Lieutenant Barclay. I remember him from Jupiter Station. What the hell is he doing in this mess?”

The two officers listened intently to the small display as the hologram of Barclay insisted that the Doctor was, in reality, his own creator Lewis Zimmerman, and that all of _Voyager_ was simply a holographic program.

“What are you saying? That I’m a real person?” the Doctor demanded incredulously.

With a faint smile Barclay replied, “Well, I always used to think of you that way and I know your wife tends to think--”

“My _wife?_ ”

Tyvaa stiffened at the Doctor’s panicked exclamation, and felt the world tilt slightly. It was common knowledge among Starfleet that Lewis Zimmerman, recluse and misanthrope, had never married and, so far as Tyvaa was aware, wasn’t likely to. How could this simulation of Barclay, arguably one of the real Zimmerman’s closest acquaintances, so casually insist that this wasn’t the case?

“Harry, I need to get in there,” Tyvaa insisted once more. “The longer we wait out here, the bigger this mess gets. Please tell me there’s a way to at least get my voice in there to talk some sense into that hard-light head of his.

A brief smile crossed the Ensign’s face. “I can do better than just audio, Lieutenant, but it’ll take a while.”

Tyvaa sighed with resignation and firmly crossed her arms as she leveled a hard look at the holodeck doors. “Let’s hope than the Doc can hold on for that long.”

* * *

 “Set your phaser to maximum. Aim for the magnetic constrictors. Ready?”

The Doctor’s fingers clumsily fumbled through the settings on the phaser, blinking past the unfamiliar pain. For a moment, a part of him seemed to cry out that this was all foolishness, but he took his briefly unresponsive fingers as a sign that Mister Barclay was right. Wouldn’t a medical hologram be programed with the steadiest hands in the quadrant, after all? By that logic, he could only be a simple, fallible human. Slowly, carefully, he raised the phaser—

“Stop! Don’t do it Doc, don’t listen him! Step away from the warp core, Doctor, please.”

The Doctor turned to see the one Voyager crew member he certainly hadn’t been expecting to see. Tyvaa stood stiffly a few feet from Mister Barclay, and kept shooting the man distressed looks. She wasn’t dressed in a Starfleet uniform the way that he remembered her, either. A shimmering green shirt hung loose on her form under a grey parka that matched her white trousers and short silver boots. Her combadge was clearly visible and her hair was still done up in a ponytail and tucked into her shirt like it was while she worked, but the unfamiliar sight gave him pause.

“Tyvaa? What—”

“This scenario was created by your program when the ship encountered some kinoplasmic radiation while we were using the holodeck together. There’s a feedback loop that’s causing all this, and we can fix it, but you can’t trust a word that man says, and you definitely shouldn’t blow up the warp core,” Tyvaa concluded in a rush.

Barclay firmly shook his head and declared, “Don't be distracted by these holographic characters. Stay focused on what you need to do. Destroy the warp core.”

“Wait a minute,” the Doctor demanded. “Tyvaa didn’t even board Voyager until after all of the crew had been returned from the Array. So what is she doing here?”

A pained smile curved Tyvaa’s lips, and she gestured with her hands helplessly. “I’m not really here, Doc. Harry’s been working damn near tirelessly to broadcast me in here on the holodeck while you’ve been trapped in this simulation. You’ve had me worried sick, y’know?”

“Tyvaa-“

“Doctor,” Barclay interrupted, “Do you remember coming into the holodeck and running a holonovel with Tyvva during the last six hours?”

“No, but I-“

It was Tyvaa’s turn to scowl, and the stiff lines of her shoulders mimicked the angry silhouettes of her antennae. “We don’t have time for this. We have to get you out of this illusion Doc, and hopefully back to Sickbay.”

The Doctor took an uncertain step back, and a pained look passed over Tyvaa’s face like a shadow. She looked as if she’d been struck across the face, and with deliberate effort Tyvaa relaxed her shoulders, fists, and antennae. She cleared her throat before speaking again, soft and firm.

“You were with me. I decided you should have some time off like anyone else. I took you to the holodeck, to show you a snowstorm,” she describes, smiling faintly at the memory. “You don’t remember because the kinoplasmic radiation is corrupting your recent memory files through the feedback loop. But trust me, Doctor, it was the best holodeck time I’ve had all year.”

Barclay placed his hands on the Doctor’s shoulders, looking him in the eyes and attempting to block Tyvaa with himself. He insisted, “You don’t have memory circuits, you have a _mind_ , and it’s being damaged. Destroy the Voyager, destroy the hologram, and we can get you off of the holodeck.”

“No! If you destroy the program, the feedback loop will kill you too,” exclaimed Tyvaa, her eyes wide. She took a step toward the Doctor, but her hands clenched into fists at her sides, clearly unsure of whether to approach the Doctor further.

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut as pain—maybe simulated, maybe not—pounded in his head. He knew that Barclay and Tyvaa still stood beside him, and that one or the other was likely a hallucination or a systems glitch, but thinking about that caused pain and perhaps he’s learnt to have a bit more sympathy for Captain Janeway’s snappish moods if they’re all caused by her migraines.

“Trust me, Lewis,” Tyvaa said, but at the same time the Doctor felt that this wasn’t Tyvaa that spoke. Her voice was infinitely gentle while being quite plainly scared, and the Tyvaa he knew would’ve blown off any frightened feeling with some kind of humor.

When he opened his eyes, the Doctor stood face to face with a woman he didn’t recognize and yet felt intimately familiar with. Tyvaa’s brown eyes stared back at him, but rather than her silvered hair hanging in its professional long tail, the strands hung loose and fell over her shoulder. Neither was she wearing a Starfleet uniform. Instead, a purple silky-looking fabric enveloped her torso and soft grey trousers sat upon her hips. A necklace dangled from her throat, a russet-brown stone set in silver, and her Starfleet badge was clearly missing.

She smiled as she noticed his glance at her jewelry. Tyvaa fiddled with the necklace with two slim blue fingers. “You recognize this, don’t you? You remember me?” she asks, almost pleadingly.

“Tyvaa,” breathed the Doctor. “My assistant, my… friend.”

While not knowing how it was possible, the Doctor felt a lump grow in his throat as her brown eyes—the same color as the stone, he noticed now—widened with sadness and shock. Barclay laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, but that didn’t ease her stricken look.

The engineer said, “I told you Tyvaa, his brain is being damaged. He’s losing his memory. Lewis, this is Tyvaa zh’Quallath-Zimmerman, your wife.”

A sharp inhale drew the Doctor’s attention once again past Barclay to where Tyvaa—his Tyvaa, ponytailed and frozen still—was standing. He couldn’t help but see that she looked just as stricken as her counterpart. She exhaled a shaky breath before she spoke. “Doctor, your memories are using people you already know to play parts in your imaginary life. I met Lewis Zimmerman, remember? He has never been married, and more to the point, _you aren’t him._ ”

“Darling, please, listen to Reg,” pleaded the second Tyvaa. She placed a hand on the Doctor’s cheek, turning his head to her. Against his skin, Tyvaa’s fingers felt shockingly warm, as if he’d touched a low-level phaser beam.

“Lewis, you’re a flesh-and-blood human being, and my husband,” she insisted tearfully. “Don’t you want to live like a real person with a real life? I don’t want to lose you.”

Starfleet-Tyvaa scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest while shifting her weight uncomfortably. “When is life ever about what we want? Maybe we don’t like who we are, but we still have to live with that. And, for the record, Doctor, you’d mean just as much to me if you were flesh-and-blood or a hologram. You are getting out of here, or so help me, I’ll quarantine Mr. Kim in Sickbay until you’re back in proper order.”

The Doctor, glancing back and forth between the two Andorians, squeezed his eyes shut, distressed from seeing double. Frantically searching his memories, he recounted every image of Tyvaa he’d ever seen: exhausted, nervous, angry, joking and witty. At Sandrine’s, in Sickbay, in a snowstorm, and… silhouetted by Jupiter? The memory—or the possibility—felt so real that another twinge of agonizing indecision was felt in the Doctor’s chest. How could he ever know which was right?

“Tyvaa,” he spoke firmly, eyes still shut. If he didn’t look at either one, then did it really matter which one heard him? “Whatever happens, you are without a doubt the best thing to ever happen to me.”

A shaky laugh came from a few feet in front of him, and his vocal processors stalled as he heard Tyvaa’s voice speak.

“Are we sure we’ve got the right one? That seems a bit too sweet for the hologram I know and-” Tyvaa cut herself off as the Doctor opened his eyes, and the arms that had been crossed over her chest relaxed slightly. The smile that crossed her face as their gazes met was relieved and had a soft quality that disrupted the steady rhythm of his simulated respiration.

“Doctor, do you know who I am? Where you are?”

Captain Janeway’s voice startled both medical personnel, and it was only then that the Doctor registered the presence of Kim and the captain inside of the holodeck. Kim was shooting vaguely amused glances to Tyvaa, who had shifted her weight uneasily despite the smirk beginning to grow on her face. Janeway looked almost more tired than usual, and a few strands of hair had made their way out of her tightly wound bun.

“I appear to be in the holodeck, Captain,” replied the Doctor. The three officers visibly relaxed at that, and a brief smile even ghosted across Janeway’s face.

“That’s right. And you know what you are?”

“I’m the Emergency Medical Hologram,” he said, then hesitated, glancing back at Kim and Tyvaa. “Right?”

“If you aren’t, I know somebody who won’t be reporting to the Bridge for a while,” quipped Tyvaa, but her smile was tight and unconvincing. Harry Kim looked sheepish, but he nodded in confirmation.

The Doctor turned his attention back to the Captain to ask, “I assume that everything that happened here happened on the holodeck?”

“Yes, exactly. A radiation surge badly affected the computer, courtesy of a subspace anomaly we encountered,” Janeway summarized.

The Doctor was suddenly thankful that he was not in possession of blushing subroutines as a particular thought crossed his mind. He asked haltingly, “And Tyvaa is my colleague, not my—” His aborted question evoked raised eyebrows from Ensign Kim and Captain Janeway, and the former glanced at Tyvaa with the beginnings of a smirk.

“Nope, definitely not married,” blurted Tyvaa as an azure flush settled on her cheeks, presumably from embarrassment. The illusion of her had certainly been affectionate, more than Tyvaa usually was. Although the Doctor was possibly the _least_ qualified person to gauge that, given that she was likely more affectionate with her true friends rather than a simple colleague, and the added romantic connotations were—

They were _not_ something he was likely to _ever_ be privy to, and the Doctor firmly closed that line of thought.

“If I may, I’d like to return to Sickbay now,” the Doctor said shortly.

“Right, of course,” Tyvaa agreed, but she trailed off with a smile. “It’s good to have you back to normal, Doc.”

Back to normal. Did those words sting a little? He was the same holographic doctor he had been, and nothing more. He was, in that moment, all that he ever would be. Right?

“It’s good to be back,” he echoed.


	2. Persistence of Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I definitely didn't keep my promise of updating within September. Forgive me? Also the chapters will be shorter than usual for a while until I've got enough time and mental health to produce something long and good instead of long and badly written. My thanks to everyone who has kudo'd or commented on any part of the Doctor Tenor, Soldier Spy series!

It hit Tyvaa like a brick to the head one day, just how much overtime she was clocking in Sickbay. When Captain Janeway came in, she greeted Tyvaa with “It’s good to see you, Lieutenant,” and the nurse stalled when she realized that the last time she’d seen the Captain was two weeks ago, when she’d last come to the Mess Hall for a meal rather than replicate breakfast or dinner in her quarters. She hadn't been seeking out off-hours company very much either, now that she thought about it. Sharing quarters with B’Elanna afforded Tyvaa an easy, low maintenance friendship, but her roommate was only one person out of a crew of over one hundred. 

_ I suppose I haven’t been a very social friend or crew member recently _ , she thought with a hint of guilt,  _ except to the Doctor, with all the time I’m spending in Sickbay.  _ Tyvaa spared a glance at the Doctor through the med-lab windows and noticed the stiff way he held himself as he spoke to Janeway in Sickbay proper.  _ While the rest of the crew isn’t very cordial to him, I hope he knows how much he means to me, _ mused Tyvaa.

Tyvaa jumped as she felt a shock, like an icicle sliding down her neck and spine. At the same time, she heard Kes quietly cry out in surprise. The young woman’s expression matched what Tyvaa felt. Tyvaa also must've cried out as well without realizing it, because at once the Doctor stood in the doorway, watching her with wide eyes. He looked from his colleague to his student in alarmed confusion.

“Tyvaa? Kes?”

“I don’t know what it was,” Tyvaa murmured. She rolled her shoulders to brush off the unearthly chill, and the tips of her antennae tingled, the nerves reawakening as if put to sleep by intense cold. She crossed the room and placed a reassuring hand on the Doctor’s arm. He nodded jerkily, but his shoulders were less stiff as he returned stand by the consoles.

“I felt cold, and shivery,” explained Kes haltingly, her arms wrapped around herself.

With an exhausted sort of smile, Janeway murmured, “Someone was walking on your grave.”

_ That’s uncharacteristically dark of you, Captain. _ Tyvaa asked, “What do you mean?”

“It’s just an old saying from Earth. A way of describing an odd feeling like that,” explained Janeway.

“How macabre,” remarked the Doctor dryly.

The Captain’s eyebrows pinched together in bemusement. “It’s a human expression, Doctor. I would have thought you’d heard it.”

“My programmers didn’t clutter my program with pithy human trivia, Captain;  _ useful  _ data was the priority.” After a glance at one of the consoles, the Doctor turned to Tyvaa and asked, “Would you bring me the sub-neural scanner, please?”

From the doorway, Tyvaa nodded and returned to the lab and storage space. Tracking down the scanner was as simple as counting down the shelves and opening the correct compartment, but as she entered Sickbay proper once again, the icy sensation pierced her to the bone. For a split-second, Tyvaa saw Kes stiffen up, but then the lieutenant’s vision began to swim. Tyvaa threw her arm out to counterbalance, and her antennae curled inward to block off the disruptive sensation, but as quickly as it had begun, the iciness vanished. 

Thankfully, the Doctor looked about as confused as Tyvaa felt. “What happened?” he demanded. 

“I’m not sure,” answered Janeway. Eyes wide with alarm, she stood up from the biobed and shifted uneasily on her feet. “The image of the girl rushed at me.” 

“I saw it too,” Kes chimed in. “I felt something hit and bounce off of me, into Tyvaa, and then into you, Captain. Tuvok and I have attempted repelling hostile thoughts during our lessons, but this felt different.”

Tyvaa balked at the attention turned at her, and blinked the residual dizziness from her mind. “I felt something pass right through me rather than bounce off me,” she offered. “I might’ve conducted it through me and toward you, Captain.” 

With a contemplative frown, the Doctor said, “Until we are able to determine what is causing these hallucinations, Captain, I’d advise you to get some rest.” 

Janeway offered only a weak smile and a quiet reply as she made for the doors weariness evident in her every step. “I’ll try, Doctor.”

The moment the Sickbay doors slid shut after her, the Doctor turned quickly to Tyvaa. His brow furrowed in concern as he stepped closer. “Now, Tyvaa, are  _ you  _ alright?” he asked. 

“Alright enough to finish out my shift,” Tyvaa answered brightly, but her forced peppy energy was not convincing enough for him. A resigned sigh left her and she admitted, “I got a little dizzy, but it was likely due to my telepathic muscles being out of practice. Don’t worry about me, I’ll make sure to get some rest after my shift.”

Some of the concerned intensity left the Doctor’s gaze, and a quick rise of his shoulders simulated a deep breath. “If you’re sure, Tyvaa.” 

With what she hoped was a reassuring smile, Tyvaa returned to work. With no patients in Sickbay, Kes also made use of the medical lab, studying the latest PADDs that the Doctor had given her on human physiology. The young woman looked up as Tyvaa entered, and quietly laughed, which stopped the lieutenant in her tracks. 

“What’s so funny?” Tyvaa asked, bemused. 

“You were broadcasting telepathically again,” answered Kes cryptically, but a pleased smile remained on her face.

“And what was I broadcasting that made you laugh?”

Kes pursed her lips, but her restraint vanished all at once when she said gleefully, “You think the Doctor worries too much, but you enjoy him showing concern for you. It’s… sweet.”

Tyvaa flushed dark blue as she realized that the warm glow in her chest from her conversation with the Doctor felt exactly like what Kes described. She could hardly deny it, and cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Well, everyone likes to be worried over once in a while, yes? And you know the Doctor; he’s the most professional worrier around.”

Kes rolled her eyes, but let the subject lie. The two women kept a companionable silence until the end of Tyvaa’s shift. Unfortunately, just as Tyvaa was about to leave Sickbay for her quarters, Captain Janeway entered once more, accompanied by Tuvok. She looked frantic, just as she had after her hallucination in Sickbay earlier. 

“I found the Captain outside of her quarters, just as she began to hallucinate,” Tuvok explained, his tone clipped in the way that Tyvaa associated with worry. 

“Well, with the three best telepaths on the ship, we should be able to do something for the Captain,” proclaimed Tyvaa guided the Captain to a biobed. The job was made all the more difficult as her antennae began curling in on themselves again, but Tyvaa only set her jaw in determination.

Though she wasn’t facing him, Tyvaa could practically hear the Doctor roll his eyes. “You are the  _ only _ three telepaths on the ship, and unless you are suffering from short term memory loss, Tyvaa, you agreed to get some rest.”

Tyvaa mulled over the idea for only a few seconds: sleep sounded wonderful after almost twenty hours without it, but so long as she wasn’t nodding off where she stood, she could be useful. For all of her snappy quips about her Starfleet career, Tyvaa had joined up for the main purpose of being useful. 

“After we fix the Captain up, Doctor, but not before,” she decided. 

The Doctor performed an exasperated sigh, but made no further argument. 

Tyvaa and Tuvok hovered near Captain Janeway as she continued in her hallucination on the biobed, while the Doctor and Kes kept a few steps back. As Janeway’s face grew more and more troubled, icy cold prickled on the tips of Tyvaa’s antennae, the same as during the first hallucination. Tyvaa chewed on her cheek to keep alert.

“I hear something. A sort of bark, and a man’s voice,” Kes began warily, but she cut herself off when her gaze locked on to something only she could see. “There’s a woman, threatening the Captain with a knife.” 

The Captain’s eyes were wide but unseeing, and panic was beginning to roll off her in waves. “Janeway to Security, intruder alert,” she said. She began to thrash, almost falling off the bed before Tuvok and Tyvaa caught her and held her arms in case she hurt herself or one of them. 

“Security to the Captain’s quarters!” Janeway cried again. “Tuvok, please respond!”

“Captain! Captain, listen to me! You are in Sickbay. You are alright.” Tuvok spoke forcefully, and shook the Captain’s shoulder once before Janeway’s eyes focused on her Security Chief. 

Tyvaa let out a sigh of relief, and helped the Captain to her feet. Kes stepped up to lead Janeway toward a biobed, and as soon as the young woman had the situation in hand and a blanket draped over the Captain’s shoulders, the Doctor turned to Tyvaa. His serious expression changed not one iota as Tyvaa sighed and held up her hands in mock-defeat.

“I know, Doc, I know.  _ Rest _ . But I’m coming back in when I’ve had my catnap. This— it doesn’t feel over. I won’t feel right about  _ really _ checking out until this is all over.” 

The Doctor looked at Tyvaa for a moment, but the stubborn set of his shoulders relaxed. “I could order you to get a full eight hours of sleep,” he mused aloud.

“You could,” Tyvaa admitted. “But you aren’t going to, I think.”

“I’m not,” the Doctor agreed. A wry smile crossed his face. “You can’t read my mind, can you?”

“You’re the best, Doc, and what I do isn’t mind-reading,” Tyvaa replied as she stepped out of Sickbay.

In truth, ‘reading’ the Doctor was one of the oddest experiences that she ever had. When she could read him, the sensations she felt were muted, as if he were hundreds of miles away. Tyvaa couldn’t read him while he was deactivated, unlike with organic beings who still radiated emotion and brain waves when asleep. The closest metaphor she thought of was that she had bad reception that wouldn’t clear up. Tyvaa thought that their friendship was a miracle given how both she and the Doctor had mediocre communication habits and her usual “cheat sheet” with humans didn’t work on him. Growing anything more between them would likely require the power of a Q, or maybe ritual sacrifice.

As she pulled her solitary blanket over herself, Tyvaa muttered, “Good thing you don’t do workplace relationships any more, huh, Lieutenant?”


End file.
